f his heart is
strong, and his liver is white, he goes to pieces in an emergency, and
if his liver is all right, and he tries to fight just on his liver, when
the supreme moment arrives, and his heart jumps up into his throat, and
wabbles and beats too quick, he just flunks. I would like to dissect a
real brave man, and see what condition the things inside him are in, but
it would be a waste of time to dissect dad, 'cause I know all his inner
works need to go to a watchmaker and be cleaned, and a new main spring
put in.

Well, this morning dad shaved himself, and got on his frock coat, and
his silk hat, and said we would go over to the white house and have
a talk with Teddy, but first he wanted to go and see where Jefferson
hitched his horse to the fence when he came to Washington to be
innogerated, and where Jackson smoked his corn cob pipe, and swore and
stormed around when he was mad, and to walk on the same paths where
Zachariah Taylor Zacked, Buchanan catched it, and Lincoln put down
the rebellion, and so we walked over toward the white house, and I was
scandalized. I stopped to pick up a stone to throw at a dog inside the
fence, and when I walked along behind dad, and got a rear view of his
silk hat, it seemed as though I would sink through the asphalt pavement,
for he had on an old silk hat that he wore before the war, the darnedest
looking hat I ever saw, the brim curled like a minstrel show hat, the
fur rubbed off in some places, and he looked like one of these actors
that you see pictures of walking on the railroad track, when the show
busts up at the last town. I think a man ought to dress so his young
son won't have a fit. I tried to get dad to go and buy a new hat, but he
said he was going to wait till he got to London, and buy one just like
King Edward wears, but he will never get to London with that hat, 'cause
to-night I will throw it out of the hotel window and put a piece of
stove pipe in his hat box.

Well, sir, you wouldn't believe it, but we got into the white house
without being pulled, but it was a close shave, 'cause everybody looked
at dad, and put their forefingers to their foreheads, for they thought
he was either a crank, or an ambassador from some furrin country. The
detectives got around dad when we got into the anteroom, and began to
feel of his pockets to see if he had a gun, and one of them asked me
what the old fellow wanted, and I told them he was the greatest bob cat
shooter in the